


Fate Twisted into the Wind

by Merfilly



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: help_pakistan, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-11
Updated: 2010-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-11 16:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it was all said and done, Gabrielle would have lost her love, but Aphrodite interfered by finding and protecting a new one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fate Twisted into the Wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shopfront](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/gifts).



> Thanks to lone_lilly and Ilyena_sylph for the beta and hand-holding.

_The Past_

"Have you found redemption?"

The words were not the ones that Xena expected to come out of the mouth of the goddess sitting at her campfire. She wished Gabrielle wasn't in town currently. Then Aphrodite would have been talking to her, surely, and leaving Xena alone. Except, Aphrodite was a goddess and would have known just where Gabrielle was, so that meant Aphrodite wanted to speak to Xena alone.

Ares must have put her up to this, Xena decided. Still, she had been asked a question.

"No. It's not a single thing that can be known in the space of a few times helping," Xena answered after a moment. She was surprised to see Aphrodite's beauty twisted up in a frown. Had it been a pout instead, Xena would have know there was trouble coming. When Aphrodite was sullen, nothing ever ended well.

"How will you know when you find it then?" Aphrodite pressed.

"I may not ever know," Xena admitted. "But I live my life in search of it."

"That seems... wrong."

Xena actually looked at the goddess again, curious despite herself. "Why are you asking?"

"Curiosity."

"I never took you for a cat," Xena said drily. Aphrodite actually smiled.

"Oh but I can be. Pet me right and I purr," she said in reply, her voice low and playfully smoky, which made them both smile a little. Then Aphrodite took a deep breath. "I want to make certain Gabrielle knows I've never meant her harm, that she is my friend... but sometimes I can tell she is wary of my friendship."

"Like redemption, friendship can be hard to fully nurture," Xena offered. "You wish to be her friend, then you just put her welfare ahead of other things, and in time, it will speak for itself. The only way to redeem yourself in a person's eyes is to let your actions speak for themselves."

Aphrodite thought about that a moment, then smiled brilliantly and nodded. "I can do that!"

A few moments after Xena looked away from the goddess, Aphrodite was gone. Xena just hoped she hadn't just wished Gabrielle more trouble than it was worth in answering Aphrodite.

`~`~`~`~`

Sneaking into where the Fates wove the lives of people took careful planning and cunning. Luckily, Ares, among several other gods, was causing enough havoc that Aphrodite was able to take advantage of an argument they had going on with the Norse Norns to sneak to the tapestry and divine Gabrielle's thread in the weave of it all.

Again, a frown creased unbecoming lines into her face, as she saw threads that wove into and out of Gabrielle's life being sheared and cut with alarming frequency. A careful study in the few moments she had told her that some threads had to be cut, for the safety of the greater pattern. One, though.... Aphrodite smiled and got herself out of there, with a firm idea of how to guard not only Gabrielle, but to strengthen her own presence in the bard's life.

`~`~`~`~`

Normally, Aphrodite preferred to shy away from the battlefields, leaving them to Ares, or to Hephaestus when he was inspecting new armor or weapons in use. That one little incident at Troy had told her it really wasn't her forte, and she'd studiously avoided it as often as possible since then.

However, she had to keep a close eye on this Roman intrusion that was being planned. She could not let the Amazonian Queen fall in the battle, and was curious just how she would turn the course of Fate so that her greatest gift for Gabrielle could manifest.

"Sister?" The word preceded her intrusion in the glade that Artemis was currently enjoying. The Huntress looked up in silence, which made Aphrodite grimace on the inside. "Please don't ignore the Amazons in the coming battle. They've been through such toil and trouble already in recent times."

"Why should you care?" Artemis asked in surprise, and wary preparation for trickery.

"I do not trust the Romans and their intention. I do not think they will remember us so well," Aphrodite said with a heartfelt sigh. It was true, in its own way after all.

Artemis considered for a long moment, then shrugged. "I suppose I can trust you, as we are nothing without those who heed us. You'll do anything for your own skin."

For once, Aphrodite was glad of her reputation.

`~`~`~`~`

_The Present_

Ephiny idly scratched at the scar along her forearm, recalling her narrow escape from the Roman army that long ago day. How her life had spiraled from that point, she thought, smiling to herself a little. She still had no idea where the arrow that had wounded him had come from, but she could have sworn it had a golden hue, perhaps fletched with the feathers of a guinea fowl.

Her musing on the past came to an end as Gabrielle rolled over in the bed they shared, allowing Ephiny to look at her face. She was sleeping peacefully, and it had been several turns of the moon since the nightmares had come to the woman Ephiny both loved and followed. For while Ephiny was Queen of the Amazons, Gabrielle would always be the true Queen in her heart. In truth, the tribe followed them both.

"You're staring at me," Gabrielle said softly, as she sleepily opened her eyes a few moments later. " Finding more gray hairs?" she teased softly, before pretending to be irate at the attention. "Don't you have preparations to make? Xenan will be here anytime now with Borias."

"Soon enough, yes." Ephiny smiled at the words, knowing it was just a ploy for Gabrielle to try and get some more sleep. "Formal alliances between the last of the Centaurs and the remaining Amazons are good things, but so is being right here, with you."

"Leave the poetry and fluffiness to me, Ephiny," Gabrielle said, but she smiled and leaned up to kiss the woman who had given her an anchor, helped her move past those awful first months with Xena gone.

"I'm already looking forward to the tales at the feast tonight," Ephiny said once the gentle kiss ended. She then sighed and got up, stretching and feeling every ache of age in her bones, in the old wounds long since healed over. They both were getting old, but the Amazon leadership had been clearly defined, with both of them training the women who would one day lead, just as Xenan's people had done. Both tribes were steadily shrinking, but the ones that remained had grown all the tighter in their bonds of kinship. Today would seal that union.

Gabrielle decided lazing in bed was not the perfect solution to her day either, and got up to find a tunic and a pair of trousers. Later, she'd put on a skirt -- with breeches beneath it -- for the feast. Sure as anything could be definite, Gabrielle knew that there would be some kind of trouble at the feast, if not before. It was just the way their lives ran.

"You're thinking about fighting," Ephiny said, sliding up behind Gabrielle, draping her chin over her shoulder as her arms encircled the other woman's waist.

"You know something will happen," Gabrielle said out loud.

"Leave the doom and gloom to me, Gabrielle," Ephiny told her, purposefully mirroring Gabrielle's earlier words. It made the bard-turned-warrior shift and then move to face Ephiny, looking up into her face.

"How about we go it together in both things? Fluff and doom?"

"It's worked so far," Ephiny answered, before claiming a slow, soulful kiss, answered in full by the woman she loved.

`~`~`~`~`

Xenan looked on proudly as Borias and Iphigenia exchanged formal words of betrothal, the first step to cementing the alliance of the Amazons and Centaurs. While some elders, on both sides, had voiced the idea that this was the beginning of the end of the two tribes as separate people, Xenan was certain both tribes' ways would be preserved.

His eyes fell on his mother, presiding as queen, and noted, just beyond her, Gabrielle. The Centaur thought that they were well-matched, seasoned by life and the history they had lived through. Gabrielle's hand stayed near the chakram, her eyes moving vigilantly along the outskirts of the woods. It reminded Xenan that his entire life had been lived under one conflict or another, even after the Twilight of the Gods.

He looked back to his son and the young woman that would be his wife, listening as they were consecrated as the living embodiment of the new alliance treaty. When he glanced back to Gabrielle's place, she was gone, and that almost made him frown. No, surely she was just seeing to her personal needs. Nothing was going to mar this festival as the rituals were completed.

`~`~`~`~`

Sometimes, instincts had to be followed. Gabrielle could scarcely remember the girl-child she had been so long ago, the one that had been forced to learn the hard way that a life of adventure would demand more than just following Xena around. She had, over the years, honed her skills as a fighter, including knowing just when to listen to her instincts.

Maybe it had been a restlessness to the woods beyond their clearing for the festival. Maybe it had been the call of a hunting wolf that had not been repeated. Either way, Gabrielle decided to check on the sentries posted by both sides, and did so quietly, almost a shadow within the trees. Everything looked fine to the east, the north... and then she found the sentries on the southern side of the camp silenced by darts that had to have been poisoned.

She kept her quiet, and remained hidden, her eyes adapting to the dark that was falling, scanning outward. A small band of Phrygians, it looked like, using captured ponies or mules perhaps. Gabrielle recognized them by their headgear, the strange little caps that all Phrygians seemed to wear. From where she was, she thought she saw ten, well armed, waiting for more darkness to fall, or for the wine and ale to befuddle the two tribes. Such a small band meant a fast raid... or mercenaries paid to disrupt the proceedings.

Either way, Gabrielle was not going to let this happen. The sentries could not give warning, but she could.

`~`~`~`~`

Ephiny's head came up from hugging Borias as she heard a certain bird call. She and Gabrielle had worked out the details earlier in the day, in case of anything going amiss. The Amazon felt a surge of adrenaline, before her eyes snapped to the various women she had chosen earlier in the day. Hand signals followed, and they melted away, before Ephiny made it to Xenan's side.

"Attackers. A small band, and sentries down." She smiled at the way her son looked at her in awe. "Gabrielle is a very sneaky scout."

"What should I do?"

"Warn your men quietly, make the revelry loud, and be ready in case they run past our guard." She kissed his cheek, and then headed out into the woods, a silent, deadly woods-warrior once more. She and the handful of her guards moved under cover of the noise as the music players struck a lively tune, cheers and yelling beginning the party that both tribes wished to share in light of their alliance.

Ephiny knew just where the sentries were supposed to be, and the call had come from the south, but she circled wide, just in case. She was familiar enough with Gabrielle to know the order she would have checked, so the west needed to be cleared.

Minutes later, her own bird call rang out; the west was clear, and it was time. Gleefully, the Amazons -- including Gabrielle -- surprised the ambushing Phrygians with a rush of their own into the waiting attack.

`~`~`~`~`

Gabrielle found Ephiny as they returned from the fight. The captives they had taken had been put into a slaver's wagon the ambush party had parked a little further away, putting a clear motive on their presence here. In the morning, a party of Centaurs and Amazons would take them to the nearest town to be judged, but for now, there was still a festival to enjoy.

Both women got clean and into new clothes, before joining the revelry. Ephiny did not let Gabrielle out of sight, though, now that the expected trouble was past. She was in high spirits, with the sanctity of the treaty protected and the two tribes showing signs of more unions to come. Perhaps it would work well this way, at least for another generation or so.

"You're being thoughtful," Gabrielle said, settling into Ephiny's lap with a plate of food for them to share.

"So many changes," Ephiny said. "Trying to look to the future."

"It will come. We've laid the best foundation we can," Gabrielle said softly. "That is the most any can do."

"Perhaps." The Amazon leaned her head on Gabrielle's shoulder. "Not all the changes have been bad."

"No, they haven't," Gabrielle said softly. Perhaps, other paths might have turned out as good, but... she had Ephiny and their love. She had her memories of Xena. And there was still a future to look forward to. Gabrielle would count all of that as a winning situation.

`~`~`~`~`

The day of the wedding came, with Iphigenia standing there as a radiant bride, and Borias nervous as a young man should be. Ephiny and Gabrielle joined Iphigenia's mother in guiding her out, stepping back together, their fingers lacing tight. Gabrielle looked to the sky, and then beyond, thinking she felt the touch of a god nearby, yet she saw no one. Then she looked at Ephiny, and knew that while Aphrodite might not hae been physically there, she was very much present in the best way possible. Who could have known that Aphrodite would be so kind in the blessings of love, given all the trouble in earlier years.

Somewhere distantly, Aphrodite smiled, and thought that in the end, it didn't matter if Gabrielle knew why or not. It only mattered that her friend was happy.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Artemis's bow and arrows were thought to be gold, and the guinea fowl was one of her scared birds.


End file.
